


Delicious

by FeatherQuilt88



Series: The Amber Dragon Anthology [28]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Comedy, Fire Lord Zuko, Food, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 03:51:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21191099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeatherQuilt88/pseuds/FeatherQuilt88
Summary: Fire Lord Zuko is having a celebratory dinner with his friends. Iroh is temporarily barred from eating sweets. This is, of course, unacceptable.





	Delicious

**Author's Note:**

> For readers new to my "Amber Dragon" fanfic series--Zuko and Iroh have started calling each other "Dad" and "Son" now.

It is a rare occasion when Lord Zuko has managed to get all of his friends from Team Avatar together at the same time, for an anniversary supper. The royal kitchen servants have _outdone_ themselves. There are glazed bean-buns, crab dumplings, stuffed ash-bananas, vegetable and noodle hotpots, curried rice and eggs... and there at the center, a magnificent fruitcake, dripping with honey and filled with countless cherries and plums.

And yet Iroh will apparently not be able to try the latter at all!

"No one is chiding you about your weight, Dad," Zuko reassures his adoptive father, in almost the same tone as he would soothe an angry toddler. "It's not that at all. It's just the moose-pox, remember? The doctor said no desserts until you're over it."

"But _Zuko,_ it looks so DELICIOUS!..." Iroh whines, placing an aggrieved hand over his bulging belly. *Grooo-oooooo!...* it gurgles pitifully, as if in agreement.

"He's _right,_ you know, Iroh," Katara puts in for her friend. The young Water Tribe lady has been learning much as a healer, so even this mostly-Firebenders' ailment is not unknown to her. "Sugar makes moose-pox stay inflamed. If you eat right and stop touching the rash, it should be gone within a week," she encourages the old man gently.

"I don't care," Iroh scratches his chest stubbornly, reaching for the cake with the other hand. "Honeyed cherries are my absolute favorite!"

Zuko smacks his father figure's wrist. Everyone but the now-very-pouty Dragon of the West giggles.

The conversation resumes to how Sokka and Suki are balancing their time between patrolling the South Pole and Kyoshi Island together. With Zuko now distracted, Iroh reaches for the fruitcake again, and snares a rich, plummy clump of it in his chopsticks. "MMMMMM!" he rumbles with pleasure around a bulging cheek; "I was right, it IS delicious!"

"All right, you asked for it!!" Zuko stands up then, incensed. He grabs a handful of extra chopsticks from a container on the table, and begins laying them out around the fruitcake-stand. The others watch curiously.

"_Prince Iroh,_" the young monarch declares firmly, putting his finger down inside this "chopstick fence" and next to the cake; "by royal decree of _your Fire Lord,_ you are hereby BANISHED from this square on the table!!"

A hush falls over the group. Iroh blinks. Then, calmly, he turns and smiles at a particular one of his and Zuko's friends. "Aang?" the old dragon calls out very sweetly. "Would you come over here for a moment, please?"

Though puzzled, the little monk gets up obediently, to stand at Iroh's side. It happens in a flash. Iroh has undone his kimono-sash, and he now loops it around Aang, arms and all, and ties it into a bow. Grinning from ear to ear, he puts one hand on Aang's shoulder, and gestures grandly with the other, bellowing, "I HAVE CAPTURED THE AVATAR AND RESTORED MY HONOR! --Now where's that fruitcake?!"

"_DAA-_AAD!!!" Zuko roars in return. Iroh, Aang, and everyone else at the table (with the exception of the young Fire Lord, and possibly Katara) is in hoots and shakes of laughter.


End file.
